Of Sinners and Saviors
by FlyingHampsterOfDoom
Summary: A series of one-shots; mostly character studies of an OC named Ophelia.
1. Chapter 1

_Minor note: This is told through the eyes of an original character, who I'm actually writing a story around in the Supernatural 'verse; this just popped into my head, and I didn't know if I'd actually be able to use it in my story, so I decided to just publish it as-is, since it works as a one-shot (at least I think so, if you don't agree drop me a note). And no, this is not ever going to be a precursor to a Dean/OC story. In all honesty it is a Castiel/OC story, with NO romantic involvement of Dean. _

Dean had woken up from another nightmare. Dean had woken up and looked so broken she could have sworn that oceans drained simply so she would have enough tears to cry; as if somehow that would make it better.

And she wouldn't sit there idly anymore. She didn't want to hear the torment of universes ripping each other apart.

The harpy cry of stars colliding and the silent burn of the earth shifting around them. She couldn't stand to hear the bitter rushing of the creeks as they turned into oceans; pouring down the sides of mountains who bowed before this man, and the waterfalls that mocked emotion as if they were the tears of the ground herself.

She could see that he suppressed the shivers that only the cold of Hell can bring, and she ached within her soul at the knowledge that the mountains cried as they bowed down for him, because all of earth seemed to realize that he had become its Atlas, and he was too strong to let it fall.

And yet too weak to survive it. So all of existence had become aware that their savior was dead.

His hands, rough with the knowledge of death and saving and smoke and blood and strength and pain and acceptance and the insatiable need to protect and the rough-hewn and sore knowledge that they would still yet fail- yes, _those _hands- were buried deep within his hair; supporting his head as only sinner hands could, and trembling as only a God-filled hand can.

She was hesitant to interrupt, despite the wild and unquenchingly painful need to do so. He looked like a man broken, but a man that knew he needed to not be broken. A man who was depended upon.

And the room was too large for her to cross; how was she to close this distance, that gnawed and gaped with its inky blackness that felt like oil on her skin and poison in her lungs. There was too much distance between him and her, and suddenly she felt like the sinner, sitting in the shadows quietly and greedily eating up the site of something so great as him.

He felt like salvation in that moment, swathed in the yellow-cream sheets that seemed as if reflecting his very presence, like a lone lightning bug trying to stave off the blackness of the entire night. Her substitute sun in everything that had become of her life; and she knew then that was why she was the sinner. Thrusting more weight onto Atlas was cruel indeed, and she was too weak to stop it from happening.

But she could ease this burden, this one sand grain. And no darkness was going to stop her, for suddenly she knew she would follow this man into her death, if only to be there night after night for him in his most dire despairs.

She finally had a reason to be traveling with these brothers who were together the moon and the stars and the collision of all known matter- the creators and dividers of universes- should they decide, on a whim, to begin life with a well-placed lightning bolt, or end galaxies with a single miss-placed atom.

The ink swirled around her, and she could feel it at the edges of her clothes, trying to pull her back into itself; could feel it swirling around her as if she herself was made of smoke and death. She walked towards him, and let his light envelop her until she could see the pink-red of her blood through her skin.

She sat there next to him until he looked up, and she could see within his eyes the war of Heaven and Hell, knowing that these were memories and not wild fears created in moments of silence.

"No, Dean. I need you here," tears fell from her eyes, and she could feel the weight of Judgement falling upon her, and Hell lapping at her feet, clawing at her insides and laughing at the audacity of her selfishness. The quiet was too long, and she feared she had failed him, had said the wrong thing, had pushed him too far.

"I see their faces," he whispered, and she knew then that he needed to have just one person that relied on him; just one he could focus on, and Sam had been pulling away; there was no one to tell, no one who leaned on him as if a support beam to his pillar.

"You always will," she felt a wretch saying it, feeling the knife twist in her gut and knowing it twisted in his as well. His eyes closed, and his breath came out in a gentle hitch; they had both known that wasn't what he wanted her to say. She knew it would bring acceptance, and he knew it would bring more doubt. She could feel him begin to pull away from their conversation, to try and put himself together for her sake, and she was deathly afraid that in doing so she would see him dead.

Her arms wrapped around his neck so suddenly that he didn't have time to jerk away, and she pulled his head down to her shoulder, burying her face in his hair. "No, Dean," her voice cracked, and she felt the villain again for making him live through this outside of his dreams, "I need you here."

She couldn't see his face, and so she didn't know if he understood her words, but she felt another ragged breath in and the hot air of a soft sob tickle her neck.


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel felt something pulling at the back of his mind, but at the moment he couldn't be bothered to place it, his heart was still racing too fast for him to concentrate on anything else.

Ophelia came out of the bathroom, and he was relieved to see she was no longer covered in blood, but he could feel his face pulling down into an expression he wasn't sure how to classify when he saw her torn shirt in her hand, and claw marks marring her neck. The raw-red scratches still bubbled with small pinpricks of blood that he could trace past her collar bone, but they dipped and were obscured by the white expanse of his shirt.

Another feeling pulled at him, he was sure it was a feeling. This one didn't make his heart race like the last one, but made it more, flop, that seemed an appropriate word choice.

Looking at her covered by his shirt made it flip one more time before he was able to get it under control. She had the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and he could see scrapes along her left arm, where she had hit the door to the hotel as she attempted to drag Dean in after her; and while the shirt was long on her, it wasn't near long enough to justify her wearing a pair of pajama boxers with them.

He felt his throat forget how to swallow, and considered telling her of the virtues of modest clothing, but looking at her again, he could see just how tired and scared she was.

Seeing her scared seemed to flip a switch in him, and he was suddenly able to label his emotion: he had been scared, too.

Only, it wasn't just scared, it had felt like more. Like… Like being terrified.

She had rammed the door open with her shoulder, Dean practically lying on her back, and he'd lost his breath at the sight.

There had been so much blood that he wasn't sure how much was hers and how much was Dean's, and her shirt hadn't really been a shirt at that point- it was more a piece of string holding up a ripped cloth; it hadn't been enough to hide the scratch marks along her stomach, nor the way her stomach had heaved when her legs tried to give out on her.

She had to place Dean on the ground to drag him through the doorway, and the blood that had soaked her back was enough to snap Castiel out of his stupor. He took Dean's weight from her after her first attempt to get him into the room had resulted in scrapes along her left arm.

He had wanted to go to her first, he was sure it wasn't a good sign when she had collapsed just inside the entrance, dry heaves making her back arch and almost-scabbed wounds crack open; but Dean was clearly the worse of the two, and Castiel always went where he was needed most.

Dean had been stabbed in the gut, just below his rib cage, and the paleness of his skin made the freckles on his face stand out like violent jabs of ink. He shook from cold and shock and fear, but his jaw clenched down in determination, and even when Castiel jabbed at the wound a little too hard Dean hadn't yelled out; merely flared his nostrils and gulped in air through tight teeth.

He had made quick work of healing Dean, and if he was a little sloppy in the deliverance it was merely because his hands shook slightly and he could still hear Ophelia heaving behind him, the door still open next to her.

The bright day outside played unnervingly with her skin, highlighting just how gruesome a sight she truly was, and the sun that wove through her hair wavered as she shook, even with her arms wrapped around her middle in a move he knew was meant to hold herself together.

Kneeling down in front of her, he placed a hand on her back, "Where is Sam?"

"He took the Impala to Bobby's yesterday morning; there was something wrong, and he went to go check it out," she said in a voice that didn't waver, and he momentarily marveled at how strong humans could be, knowing that this was the reason she was so important in the war.

"Alright. Where are your clothes?" She shook her head at him, which he took to mean that they were still in the Impala.

"I've got a pair of boxers I wore to bed last night, but this shirt's been doing double-duty as pajama and day clothing," he could hear the unshed tears in her voice, "is Dean going to be ok?"

"Yes. He will sleep for a while more, but he will be fine by tomorrow," Castiel looked at her closer, trying to see if there were any large wounds that would need attending to. With a slight hand movement, he went to cover a cut in her side that was sluggishly bleeding.

"Don't you dare," she coughed, sending a small spasm of pain through her stomach. "I can do this myself, I just," she sighed, relaxing her body, "I think I'm going to go take a shower."

The effort it took her to stand made Castiel hover next to her, but he knew that if she wouldn't accept him healing her wounds, she wouldn't accept his help in the simple matter of standing. The sight of her shirt sent another spasm through his heart, and had him pulling his tie over his head so he could pull his shirt off (he still hadn't quite mastered buttons, and this was no time to try and figure them out).

"Here, it is cleaner than your current shirt," he held it out to her, and she paused at the bathroom door, her boxers and a clean towel in her left hand.

"Thank you," she smiled at him, and he felt that thing tugging at his mind again; he didn't know how to classify it, but it always made him want to keep her smiling.


	3. Chapter 3

She wasn't nearly as quiet as she thought she was, but Dean wasn't really upset at being woken up- he still hadn't managed to place her in the 'ok' noise section of his brain. And to be perfectly honest, he was surprised he'd slept for three hours without her waking him up.

The hum of the Impala coursed through him, relaxing his body back into a sleepy rhythm, and not for the first time he was glad that there was someone else in his life to help him take care of Sammy (and, begrudgingly, him, too). It was nice to fall asleep in the car for once, instead of trying to ignore the lullaby his brother's soft snores always created; nice to be able to lean his head against the cool window and glance out at the stars as they passed the sleepy purple countryside.

Her soft singing changed tune, and he hazily recognized Hallelujah as she turned the defrost on. Her voice wasn't anything beautiful, and he knew she'd be embarrassed if she ever found out he woke up to her singing, but he wasn't about to tell her anytime soon. It was comforting in a way even the feeling of his car eating up the road couldn't compare to; and he knew that, too, would embarrass her.

She didn't sing daintily, nor did she hit every note perfectly, but the way she sang never sounded shoddy. She always sang with care during the rare nights that she drove. He could hear her heart in the soft notes she chose- her voice a bit too smoky to hit the higher notes, so she chose a lower melody and let the singers carry the songs, instead playing back-seat fiddle to them.

But while her singing wasn't great (even though it was comforting), her humming was beautiful, and he always tried to stay awake long enough to hear her hum a song. He never managed to make it through an entire one, though.

Because somewhere between the cold distant stars, the soft breeze of her slightly rolled down window, and the sound of her heart beating in the form of her song, he fell asleep.


End file.
